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Post by the light works on Jul 3, 2014 14:09:06 GMT
so you have people driving what every instinct is telling them is the wrong way on the inner ring of the roundabout? yeah, i see no way that could go wrong. I guess I can see what they were thinking, but i am not convinced they don't need to go back to school on it. addendum: heavily modifying the lane dividers to reduce the opportunities for people to not do what the designers want would help. The whole thing is a joke. One BUG roundabout with a nature reserve in the middle would have been better. I do not know which drug induced fool came up with that plan, but its not popular, it doesnt work, and it needs replacing. I will go a few miles out of my way if I can avoid that joke. a bug roundabout might be a bit small for cars
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 5, 2014 7:41:03 GMT
I will have to insect my original post .... What a bugger, I missed that one.
One argument I heard about the case against large roundabouts, you cant see the traffic the other side of the roundabout.... Erm... scuse me, KEEP YOUR FORK EYES ON THE ROAD..... I dont want you watching traffic 100 yds away when you should be watching my back bumper?.... There are cases when you should look well ahead, sure, looking ahead is good for planning what you will be doing. But when you have extremely important stuff happening a thickness of a layer of paint away, PAY ATTENTION!.
And again, so one has any problems with traffic UNDER a flyover on a roundabout when you cant see through the foundations of the high level road?...
And then you have Birmingham. Used to be a town, now is just one HUGE roundabout on the M6.
There is only one good thing that comes out of Birmingham, ...........the road home.
They call it an accent?... how can 6 million people have the same speech impediment?...
Jasper carrot said that, and he is from Birmingham. (He "Borrowed" it from Mike Harding...)
[edit, below, Two motorways originally, M6 and M5, now you have M42, and M50 also getting in on the act affecting traffic flow.]
Midland Motorway Interchange system... thats the official title of Spaghetti junction, where two motorways, a couple of "A" roads, some back alleys and a goat track come together. In Mid Air.... there are a couple of Canals that meat there as well. There is also the M6 "Toll" road, its supposed to be a motorway, its just a congestion tax, its not a serious road, just a NON-speeding fine in disguise. They call it spaghetti junction 'cos they made a right Bolognese of the whole thing. The locals call it Confetti junction, because of the amount of Rubbish it collects. Not just from the traffic, but the winds around the place deposit all the rubbish on the foundations.
Did you know Birmingham has more canals than Venice?...
Enough picking on Birmingham, at least they are not Milton Keynes. Or Slough.
For reference, if you think some area's of Detroit are rough, Birmingham has the same kind of problems... Just they dont have many Guns in Birmingham..... They dont need them. Dead people cant pay back what they owe you......
There are some good parts of Birmingham. I had family that lived in the more decent areas of Birmingham, it was the heavy industry Midlands of England, good things were made in England, it was also the home of Cadburys chocolate. It also invented Heavy Rock.... cant be bad.... But that was the past.
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Post by OziRiS on Jul 16, 2014 14:42:24 GMT
so you have people driving what every instinct is telling them is the wrong way on the inner ring of the roundabout? yeah, i see no way that could go wrong. I guess I can see what they were thinking, but i am not convinced they don't need to go back to school on it. addendum: heavily modifying the lane dividers to reduce the opportunities for people to not do what the designers want would help. The whole thing is a joke. One BUG roundabout with a nature reserve in the middle would have been better. I do not know which drug induced fool came up with that plan, but its not popular, it doesnt work, and it needs replacing. I will go a few miles out of my way if I can avoid that joke. Where is that exactly and are there any more of them anywhere in the country? I'm looking at a job right now that might take me to the UK in a van on occasion. Never having driven on the left side of the road before scares me enough without having to try and figure something like that out on the fly!
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Post by Cybermortis on Jul 16, 2014 15:40:50 GMT
Is this going to be part of an episode? Or, is this something that was done for direct media consumption? MythBusters test a four-way stop vs. a roundabout.I have found other links relating to this, but have been unable to find out if there is an airdate for it. This is one of two episodes that was aired in Australia, but not in the US.
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 17, 2014 8:19:53 GMT
Not aired in UK either....
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Post by mrfatso on Jul 21, 2014 6:28:08 GMT
The whole thing is a joke. One BUG roundabout with a nature reserve in the middle would have been better. I do not know which drug induced fool came up with that plan, but its not popular, it doesnt work, and it needs replacing. I will go a few miles out of my way if I can avoid that joke. Where is that exactly and are there any more of them anywhere in the country? I'm looking at a job right now that might take me to the UK in a van on occasion. Never having driven on the left side of the road before scares me enough without having to try and figure something like that out on the fly! That one is in Swindon, but here is the list from Wiki Similar systems are found in the Moor End roundabout in Hemel Hempstead (Hertfordshire), which has six intersections; in High Wycombe (Buckinghamshire),[63] the Denham Roundabout in Denham (Buckinghamshire), the Greenstead Roundabout in Colchester (Essex), "The Egg" in Tamworth (Staffordshire) and the Hatton Cross Roundabout in London.[64] I have been on the Hemel Hempstead one a few times, myself, I had a summer job there once.
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Post by OziRiS on Jul 22, 2014 9:10:06 GMT
Where is that exactly and are there any more of them anywhere in the country? I'm looking at a job right now that might take me to the UK in a van on occasion. Never having driven on the left side of the road before scares me enough without having to try and figure something like that out on the fly! That one is in Swindon, but here is the list from Wiki Similar systems are found in the Moor End roundabout in Hemel Hempstead (Hertfordshire), which has six intersections; in High Wycombe (Buckinghamshire),[63] the Denham Roundabout in Denham (Buckinghamshire), the Greenstead Roundabout in Colchester (Essex), "The Egg" in Tamworth (Staffordshire) and the Hatton Cross Roundabout in London.[64] I have been on the Hemel Hempstead one a few times, myself, I had a summer job there once. Thanks for the heads up
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Post by mrfatso on Jul 22, 2014 11:50:47 GMT
The list is small, they were an experiment in traffic management tried in the 1970s for a few years, after that no more were built.
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Post by OziRiS on Jul 22, 2014 16:02:11 GMT
The list is small, they were an experiment in traffic management tried in the 1970s for a few years, after that no more were built. Then again, they weren't torn down in favor of something better either
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Jul 28, 2014 2:53:39 GMT
After spending the last week navigating the rotaries (roundabouts, traffic circles, etc) of Cape Cod, I can honestly say that the effectiveness of the rotary depends on the location and tributaries/exits. Rotaries for local routes and side streets were quite efficient. Whereas, rotaries including state highways always backed up, sometimes for miles...
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Post by the light works on Jul 28, 2014 5:13:27 GMT
After spending the last week navigating the rotaries (roundabouts, traffic circles, etc) of Cape Cod, I can honestly say that the effectiveness of the rotary depends on the location and tributaries/exits. Rotaries for local routes and side streets were quite efficient. Whereas, rotaries including state highways always backed up, sometimes for miles... the community of Astoria, Oregon (the Goonies) has one of those. you have to slow to 20 MPH to negotiate it - it is at the intersection of the main north south highway on the coast, and a minor local road. one of ours is in a grocery store parking lot, where it works well, except people just treat it like a "y" with an obstacle in the middle (take the shortest route through it) and the other was built by putting a 6 foot obstruction in the middle of a standard intersection.
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Post by OziRiS on Jul 28, 2014 9:30:14 GMT
Roundabouts/rotaries started becoming common here in Denmark in 1977. My grandfather once told me that it took an entire generation of drivers to get accustomed to them.
For the first 5 years, pretty much everyone got it wrong, but since you have to slow down so much before getting into one, there were very few accidents and even fewer that were fatal, so the powers that be decided to keep them and give them a chance. After 10 years, most people understood how they worked, but there were still those who came from rural communities and didn't see them very often who got it wrong on the rare occasion they came across one, and even some people who just felt they were stupid and refused to navigate them correctly.
15 years in and the new generation of drivers had all learned how to navigate them while they were taking their licences, so they weren't a problem at all. More or less everyone in the age group 20-65 had 15 years of experience with them, so there weren't many problems there and most over 65's who had the biggest problems with changing their habits had either turned in their licenses or died.
My point is, it's a big change to make and it takes time for people to get accustomed to it. Once they do, and the people who decide where they go up and how to build them have figured out the best way to utilize them, they're actually very practical. There are a lot of places around our country where swapping an existing roundabout for a regular intersection today would just wreak havoc on the flow of traffic.
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 29, 2014 7:42:51 GMT
To negotiate a roundabout, I always approach with the intention of full stop.... If its completely empty, you may get a roll through, but the idea is you should slow down... Its more give way than actual stop, but its best to intend to stop until you are sure its clear. You only give way to one side, less places to look than a normal intersection junction whatever, no traffic lights, for me, its a lot easier, and less ques. Its just the one I posted, with all that confusion, its hateful. Why make it more confusing than it already is?...
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Post by OziRiS on Jul 29, 2014 7:51:15 GMT
To negotiate a roundabout, I always approach with the intention of full stop.... If its completely empty, you may get a roll through, but the idea is you should slow down... Its more give way than actual stop, but its best to intend to stop until you are sure its clear. You only give way to one side, less places to look than a normal intersection junction whatever, no traffic lights, for me, its a lot easier, and less ques. Its just the one I posted, with all that confusion, its hateful. Why make it more confusing than it already is?... True. The basic concept of a roundabout is so simple, so why change it? The people who made the one you posted are just stupid. Why take something so simple and overcomplicate it like that? It's like giving someone a shoe, a simple thing that most people would be able to figure out, but then having the holes for the laces in all kinds of silly places like under the soles and on the backs of the heels, just because you can and think it makes you 'special' that you've thought that up.
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 29, 2014 8:09:05 GMT
That faery cake of a stupid way to lay tarmac has been linked to aliens in many ways. I do think whoever designed it wants shooting... But I also KNOW whoever actually signed off on the design, you know, the town planners who go absolutely ape-dung if you choose the wrong colour brick on your extension, those twits, whichever one of them was responsible, they need to be sued to the highest level and be made to pay for one, JUST one, large roundabout to replace the mess they created. And then be forced to live inside the boundaries of that roundabout for the rest of their life.
[side... well.. I must "Be on one", 'cos I just typed the whole of this post without one single spelling error...Eiver that or spell chuckle is 'avin a laugh...]
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Post by the light works on Jul 29, 2014 14:33:15 GMT
well,it IS easier to not stop when you plan to; than to stop when you don't plan to...
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Post by blazerrose on Aug 4, 2014 2:00:29 GMT
According to my DVR guide, this episode will air on Discovery this Thursday 8/7 along with the other show that had been locked up in debates, Laws of Attraction at 10pm.
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Post by Cybermortis on Aug 4, 2014 11:08:48 GMT
Confirmed on Discovery's site. I posted this in the reviews and comments for 'Road Rage'.
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